In his essay, "Cool Like Me," Donnell Alexander uses several different literary devices to prove his claim that African Americans embody all that "cool" entails, inherently. With many instances of descriptive language, narrative techniques, and structural devices, he compares the coolness of himself to the coolness of other blacks and also other cultures - mainly white America - in order to get the reader to redefine "cool" in order to apply it as a black attribute. Donnell starts the essay with an immediate fishhook, "I"m cool like this:" (367) in order to firstly grab the reader's ...

• Word Count: 1153
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The education of blacks was there to meet the needs of the whites. ... White teachers were uncomfortable with the black children in their classrooms. ... As a result, sometimes black kids feel like, "I am going to make it miserable 5 Philip Bigler and Karen Lockard, Failing Grades (Arlington: Vandamere Press, 1992) 116. for you because you don't want me here anyway." The reason they fell like this is that they have gotten the message loud and clear that they are not wanted. ...

• Word Count: 2308
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

She is currently a full time student at the University of New Mexico, living close to campus in an apartment of her own and that young lady is me. ... For example: we employ such phrases as "you know what I mean," and "get me the thingy" with success, and we use completely different forms of communication for our mother and father. ... It also made me an affectionate person, comfortable with physical attention from different people. ... Like Anne Fadiman, a favorite author, I like to be at the intersection of multiple groups because, "I have always felt that the action...

• Word Count: 2124
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In a time of economic confusion, subcommunities were quick to lay the blame on each other and relationships grew sour, "not only between blacks and whites, but also between blacks and Hispanics and among various segments of the community and Asian-Americans." (119). ... Also, by speaking of the recession, Etzioni indirectly hints of the "me-ism" (123) that permeates our existing community. ... Thus, like Etzioni has advocated all along, subcommunities can co-exist peacefully. ...

• Word Count: 956
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

I always like to look at the synonyms Word offers for words; for prejudice it offers narrow-mindedness, intolerance, bigotry, and chauvinism (a few have been left out). This is interesting to me because the connotation of the word brings racism immediately to mind. ... Until then, we must see ourselves as American, not black, white, woman, man, gay, straight, etc. ...

• Word Count: 623
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Big earrings that look much heavier that they really were, seemed like they were pulling down too hard and adding that extra weight on her head. Hair tied up and half of it hidden under a piece of red and blue fabric, made it looked like she was trying to hide herself in it. ... (Korhonen 339) So who shapes the images of how attractiveness looks like and why are they so important to the people and their societies? ... With all beauty industries raising up and changes in the cultural and social aspects, for black people in nineteenth and early twentieth century in the urban upper south skin ...

• Word Count: 3143
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate